The present invention relates to a heating method. It also relates to a heating device for vehicles requiring limited power. It finds an application in the aeronautical field and more particularly for heating helicopter and light aircraft cabins.
In such light vehicles, the power which may be consumed for heating the pilot's cockpit and the passenger cabin is relatively limited. For such application to a helicopter, in one embodiment, this power is limited to about 5 kilowatts. A method used at the present time consists in taking the hot gases from the engines which are mixed with an air flow coming from outside. But helicopters and other light aircraft generally comprise an air conditioning unit. Such air conditioning maintains the temperature of the cabin below a certain threshold depending on the thermal balance of the cabin. Since the equipment carried on board the aircraft must be limited to a minimum weight, such a heating solution has the drawback of appreciably increasing the weight of an onboard air conditioning installation. The present invention overcomes this disadvantage of the prior art.